Check your premises: The contradictions of Ayn Rand

Saturday

Nov 3, 2012 at 2:31 PMNov 3, 2012 at 2:34 PM

What really moves the reader of a novel is a character he/she can identify with. This character exemplifies one's own feelings and ideas, what is best in our own selves, the things we hold true. Their suffering is our suffering and their triumphs are our triumphs.For most readers of Ayn Rand, the characters they identify with are the heroic central figures--Howard Roark from "The Fountainhead," the gifted architect who destroys his building because its integrity has been violated by petty, insignificant bureaucrats, or John Galt of "Atlas Shrugged," the leader of a strike of men of worth and talent who refuse to let the world take advantage of them any longer, refuse to keep being punished for their virtues.Then there are the beautiful women,

By Larry Eskridgeof the Daily Ledger

What really moves the reader of a novel is a character he/she can identify with. This character exemplifies one's own feelings and ideas, what is best in our own selves, the things we hold true. Their suffering is our suffering and their triumphs are our triumphs.For most readers of Ayn Rand, the characters they identify with are the heroic central figures--Howard Roark from "The Fountainhead," the gifted architect who destroys his building because its integrity has been violated by petty, insignificant bureaucrats, or John Galt of "Atlas Shrugged," the leader of a strike of men of worth and talent who refuse to let the world take advantage of them any longer, refuse to keep being punished for their virtues.Then there are the beautiful women, Dominque Francon of "The Fountainhead" or Dagny Taggart of "Atlas Shrugged," brilliant and strong heroines who refuse to settle for less than the perfect man.On the opposing side are the reprehensible villains, Ellsworth Toohey or James Taggart, mediocrities who latch onto the accomplishments of others and destroy them as parasites destroy their hosts.But the character who best exemplifies the world we would live in if Ayn Rand's philosophy ever becomes reality is Eddie Willers.Willers was a loyal employee of the Taggart Railroad, the one run by Dagny Taggart in "Atlas Shrugged." He stood by the business his whole life, and, while not one of Rand's men of talent and ability, he took care of the details which kept the business going. He also, unknowingly, served as a confidant of John Galt, who was working for the company in disguise.The final mention of Willers came when the last working locomotive stopped running. He stayed behind when everyone else on the train left (on a wagon train), stranded in the middle of nowhere because he refused to abandon the railroad. The last mention of him found Willers sobbing on the floor of the locomotive as the darkness of the wilderness began to creep in around him.That was Eddie Willers' reward for being a loyal employee of the Taggart Railroad Company, the business to which he had devoted his entire life, to which he had given his ability, his "value" as Rand would say.In the ideal world of Ayn Rand, the only appropriate relationship between men is the trading of value to each other. That would be how the economy would run. Everyone would benefit to the best of their abilities. Everyone would be compensated for their skill in producing goods and services and keeping the machinery of business running. Their worth would be determined by how well they did their jobs.Eddie Willers did his job well. His work was valuable to the company. But once the company no longer needed him, he was abandoned, literally and figuratively, because he no longer offered anything of value.This would be the fate of most people in a world run on the ideals of Ayn Rand.Most of Rand's followers see themselves as being men of talent and ability, the innovators and producers who deserve greater compensation because they are of greater worth. But in reality, most of them would be in the same position as Eddie Willers. They would be the ones whose lives would be spent working for the superior men, performing the menial tasks those men did not have the time to handle, being guided by the vision and knowledge of their betters. But no matter how hard they worked, how hard they tried, to those superior men they would be no more than raw materials--water, chemicals, metals--to be used up and discarded when they were worn out or something better came along.And after their usefulness came to an end, they were due no compensation for their former services. The world would run on the basis of "What have you done for me lately?"Rand makes a distinction between brute force, such as the gun or the law, and economic force. The former is coercion of the weak by the strong, either by physical or mental or even emotional force, and is morally wrong. The economic force Rand touted was different because those involved entered into relationships with each other of their own free will.But how much free will do the lesser men have in an economic reality dominated by the men of ability whose only desire is to get all they can? The reality is "take it or leave it," work for what the market determines they are worth or starve. And the market which determines how much they will receive for their work is set by the dictates of the men who are in it for themselves.Rand asserts the men of lesser ability would not have jobs at all without the ideas and products created by the men of talent and ability. But would the men of talent and ability be able to accomplish their goals without the efforts of those under them? Rand's own work provides a clue.In "Atlas Shrugged," the signals of the railroad terminal in New York go down because of mechanical failure. Dagny Taggart organizes the workers to signal the trains by hand, telling the men where to stand and what to do. Rand used the incident to show how the person of ability was necessary to make things work correctly. Without the person of ability, nothing could be done and anything attempted would result in chaos.(In much the same way, Rand saw herself as doing what Taggart was doing, her writings pointing the way men should live and act.)But Dagny Taggart could not do the work by herself. She needed the crowd of workers to follow her instructions because she herself could not be everywhere at once and do everything which needed to be done. She needed the workers as much as they needed her for the system to operate.Rand's belief that the selfish interest of the men of ability would act as a check against corruption and shady dealings also meets with some obstacles in the real world. According to Gary Weiss in "Ayn Rand Nation," when Alan Greenspan, the economist champion of Rand's unrestricted view of capitalism, testified on the collapse of the banking system in the recent economic downturn, he expressed shock that the businessmen's greed actually helped cause the crisis. Greenspan, who believed the less government regulation, the better, was surprised to find that the absence of regulation could cause such a result. Ironically, the man who followed a system of thought which believed in almost no government regulation was also the head of the Federal Reserve, an agency which would be eliminated if Rand's philosophy was adopted.(Rand herself received benefits from Social Security and Medicare, two government programs which would also be eliminated under her system. She could justify her receiving Social Security because she had paid into it, but Medicare came into being before she was obligated to chip in.)Rand herself would have been disdainful of people like Bernie Madoff, considering him one of the looters who tried to get rich by manipulating the work of others. But the same laws which Rand believed hampered legitimate business practices were also the ones which protected businessmen and the public against people like Madoff.Rand's view of government as obstruction was based on her experience with Communists in Russia. She saw their brand of collectivism, ruthlessly sacrificing individuals for the state, as the model for any sort of government regulations. She held up the United States as an alternative which allowed men the freedom to act in their own welfare in any way they wished.Rand touted the Founding Fathers as her ideal political men, men who worked for their own interests and opened the way for Americans to work for their own profit without interference by the government. But, as Weiss noted, the Founding Fathers sacrificed a good deal of their own resources for their country, and with no guarantee they would recoup any of their losses.And there is the problem of reconciling Rand's idea that there is no public, only individuals, with the Declaration of Independence which clearly states "We, the People."Above all, Rand saw her system as having a moral basis, albeit a morality which is the opposite of what most Westerners have been taught. Man's duty to act for himself alone, without taking responsibility for others, was the highest moral good. To sacrifice oneself for the sake of others is morally indefensible, according to Rand.An avowed atheist, Rand saw religion, particularly Christianity, as morally wrong. Rand's insistence on man acting rationally for his own good eliminated any need for God or for imaginary rewards in another world. And the knowledge that a man's reputation for honesty, which give others the confidence he could be trusted to fulfill his part of any trade, would effectively curb any underhandedness.The question, which is hotly debated today, is whether any morality can exist without some kind of outside compulsion for men to act morally?Many today, and not just followers of Ayn Rand, would say it is possible, that man's rational nature would compel him to be just and compassionate. Every religion, they note, and most philosophies have some form of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you." Everyone instinctively knows how to act and the reason we veer away from that knowledge is because of defects in our way of looking at things, a fault which can be corrected by rationally viewing the world and how it works.But if this is a universal truth, why is it that most people don't seem to follow it? Why is it that most people follow what seems to be a Darwinian struggle for survival of the fittest and that anything which furthers their interest is good? And if this instinct is beneficial as well as universal, why did we fall away from it in the first place?For Ayn Rand, the Golden Rule would be "He who has the gold, makes the rules."And he would be morally right to do so, no matter how others would be affected.As Rand herself wrote, "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."Rand's view of how things should be seems to be contradicted by how things are.If there are no real contradictions, which premise is wrong?